Conjugal Union

Hardly a week goes by that same-sex marriage (SSM) doesn't make the news. Unfortunately, Christians have done a poor job of holding up traditional marriage as society's norm. As public opinion sways in favor of approval of SSM, Christians will soon find themselves in the minority as they defend traditional marriage. To answer this lack, Patrick Lee and Robert P. George have written Conjugal Union: What Marriage is and Why It Matters. This is not a book about SSM. This is a book about marriage, an explanation of why marriage is, by definition, the union of one man and one woman.

Over the last couple of generations, marriage and sex have been coarsened and cheapened. For many, sex has become "just a fun thing to do, without serious meaning or consequences." And with the rise of "no-fault divorce," divorce has become cheaper and easier and thus more common. Both authors are conservative Catholics, and surely that perspective colors their thinking, but they argue from reason and natural law; they "do not presuppose here any revealed source of truth."

Their argument is carefully explained. Their reasoning took me back to my years as a philosophy major. The crux is this: "sexual intercourse is a unitary action in which the male and female complete one another and become biologically one, a single organism with respect to this function." Same-sex partners, "whatever the intensity of their emotional bond . . . cannot marry, simply because they cannot form together the kind of union marriage is." The good of the marital union is violated in any "nonmarital sexual acts" because they "involve . . . a depersonalization of the bodily, sexual person."

When the state gets involved in defining marriage, the state is attempting to redefine it as "emotional connection, the exchange of sexual pleasure, and shared housekeeping," thus "abolishing marriage and replacing it with some other sort of arrangement--sexual-romantic companionship or domestic partnership to which the label 'marriage' is then reassigned." Denying a same-sex couple the right to marry doesn't even make sense: "If Jones and Smith are denied a license to do X, their right was violated only if what they proposed to do really was X. The right or liberty to marry is fundamental, but it is a right to marry, not a right to the state's declaration that one's sexual relationship--which may be of various contours--is marriage."

I think Lee and George make an excellent case. The very definition of marriage is at stake. A sophisticated defender of SSM would have a hard time poking holes in the logic and conclusions of their arguments. Some may, however, object to some of their premises, thus rejecting their conclusions. All in all, Conjugal Union is a valuable resource for those who want a thoughtful, logical, non-theological defense of traditional marriage.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!